Credit Karma Review: From a User (Updated for 2018)

My Credit Karma Review

Ever since I first brought up Credit Karma in my 10 free financial services post (yes, you can get a free Credit Karma account for life), I’ve had many curious friends and readers ask me questions. That prompted me to write this Credit Karma review and update it frequently.

I’ve now been a Credit Karma user for over 8 years, and update this review every few months to reflect my experience. The most common questions I receive about Credit Karma are:

Is Credit Karma free?

What are the benefits of using Credit Karma?

How does Credit Karma make money?

Is Credit Karma safe?

Is Credit Karma a scam?

How accurate is Credit Karma?

I had all of those questions myself. And I researched heavily. What follows is a Credit Karma review that hopefully answers these questions and more.

Is Credit Karma Free?

Is Credit Karma really free? Yes, it is. 100%. This was a big question that I had going in. You’ll notice with most other “free credit score” companies, when you sign up for their service, they ask for your credit card. And then, a month later, you’ll unsuspectingly get charged. After going back to read the fine print, you’ll notice that free was really only free for the first month, and if you didn’t cancel your subscription, you’ll get charged.

Not at Credit Karma. In their FAQ’s they state:

Q: Is Credit Karma really free?

A: Yes. Credit Karma is always 100% free.

Q: Does Credit Karma require a credit card to sign up?

A: No, and we never will. Credit Karma will never ask you for your credit card number during the registration process or at any other time.

I can confirm this is true. There are zero costs with Credit Karma.

What are the Pros or Benefits of Using Credit Karma?

Here’s a rundown of all the free benefits you can get from a Credit Karma account:

TransUnion Credit Score: continuously updated so you can see how it changes periodically as you take actions that will impact your credit score.

Equifax Credit Score: you also get an Equifax credit score, in addition to TransUnion credit scores. That makes free scores for 2 out of the 3 major credit bureaus. Both scores use the VantageScore 3.0 model.

TransUnion Credit Report:Credit Karma has free credit report access too. By clicking on “My Overview” and “score details” in your dashboard, you can access your credit reports and check them any time (they are updated weekly). This gives you more consistent access to credit reporting throughout the year (versus 1 report per bureau per year via annualcreditreport.com), allowing you to frequently monitor and correct any errors or discrepancies.

Free Credit Monitoring: One of the best features of Credit Karma is free credit monitoring – so you can monitor any suspicious activity like new accounts created or credit inquiries that you did not initiate. Click in to your “profile” and look under “communications & monitoring” to set it up.

Credit Factors Report Card: Credit Factors allows you to see a grade on each of the factors that go into making up your credit report: credit utilization rate, payment history, age of accounts, derogatory remarks, total accounts, and credit inquiries. Good to know if you are looking to improve your credit score.

Credit Score Simulator: the Credit Score Simulator could be the most useful feature on Credit Karma. You get to simulate how taking certain actions (i.e. closing a credit card, opening a new one, increasing your credit line, etc.) would likely impact your score.

How Does Credit Karma Make Money?

How does Credit Karma makes money if they don’t charge you for their service? It’s a legit question. They have almost an identical business model to Mint.com. If you’ve signed up for Mint’s service, you’ll periodically get Mint partner offers that could potentially save you money. It’s a form of targeted advertising. Credit Karma has the exact same model: ad-based offers from partners.

You can elect whether or not you actually want to receive these offers right on the sign-up page under communication preferences (and you are even opted out by default). I appreciate that level of transparency.

Is Credit Karma Safe?

Any time you are dealing with your credit, you want to make sure your privacy is safe and secure. Is Credit Karma safe and secure? Yes – Credit Karma is extremely safe.

With any credit service, you must be identified by your Social Security number. With some new account registrations, you may only need to use the last 4 digits (see image). Others required the full 9 digits, if your records are harder to find. Either way, this is only for first time retrieval – and your Social Security number is not stored on their servers.

To keep your privacy safe, Credit Karma also boasts the following privacy, safety, and security measures:

Credit Karma uses 128-bit encryption to secure the transmission of information (note the “https” in the address bar).

Independently certified by digicert

Credit Karma will not sell or rent your personal information to third parties for any purpose.

Accounts are read only – you can’t execute transactions. And there is no credit card information entered.

Is Credit Karma a Scam?

Before signing up, I wondered “Is Credit Karma a scam?”. But, after researching and using them for many years, I can tell you Credit Karma is not a scam. They are a legit company with a legit business model that has been around for years now.

Credit Karma is a digicert certified company. And through BBB (Better Business Bureau), they have a strong history of responses and complaint resolutions to customers. That is reassuring.

Power in numbers is reassuring as well. Credit Karma surpassed 75 million members in 2017.

I’ve never once been charged, never once had my identity stolen, or had any complaints of any kind in the years I have used Credit Karma.

How Accurate is your Credit Karma Score?

A lot of people want to know if the scores you receive from Credit Karma are accurate. By “accurate”, I’m assuming they want to compare the Credit Karma credit scores to a FICO score (which is commonly used by lenders to judge your credit). I crosschecked. Your experience may vary, the but scores that I have received from TransUnion and Equifax through Credit Karma are usually within a handful of points of my FICO score. That’s less than a 1% spread – which is basically no difference when you are judged for a credit approval. The credit rating companies have gone out of their way to have similar rating models, and FICO uses TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian data to calculate their scores.

Credit Karma Review: Final Thoughts

Any honest Credit Karma review will talk about the cons. The only Credit Karma con I have is that there are a lot of offers in the interface when you log in to your account. It’s a minor annoyance, but this is how Credit Karma makes money, so I’ll take that trade-off vs. having to pay for the service. You are under no obligation to sign up for any offers.

All-in-all, Credit Karma is a super useful service that I think everyone should have in their financial arsenal. You’re basically getting for free what many other services like Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian are charging $15 or more per month for. And having used other credit score reporting service in the past, the nice graphical interfaces, report card, and Simulator tool make Credit Karma much more useful. I highly recommended their service to anyone and score it as a 5 out of 5 stars. Please share your Credit Karma review below.

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92 Comments

Bob

I started using Credit Karma last week. It was great to see my credit scores for free. My credit looked great and within four days it climbed higher when I clicked the update tab. However .. over the weekend I was hit with 5 expired, pass the statute of limitations, negative collection accounts I aquired from my prior divorce thirteen years ago… this action brought my score down below six hundred. I also received a collection letter from Bureau of Collections Recover today for a credit card that was closed twelve years ago. I now wish I haven’t signed up for Credit Karma, because it has opened up a can of worms for me; and that will use up my time and patience to correct. Hope this is just a fluke and has nothing to do with Credit Karma.

Are you saying that you have never checked your credit report in all this years and when you finally did with Credit Karma, that opened up a new can of worms?
I don’t see how that could have happen unless creditors get your new info when you inquire about your accounts, idk maybe that’s how it worked.

that sucks though but honestly ,don’t blame CK, this was bound to happen anyways, it’s like we all need to face up to our responsibilities at one point and maybe the same thing would have happen if you were to get a new car or something.

Wish you all the luck though, I would like to use CK to help build up my credit since they have a nice credit repair feature, i hope this works.

If it’s over 7 years old, contact the credit reporting agency and tell them it’s over 7 years old and needs to be removed. Actually this should be automatic. You are also entitled to a set of free credit reports since this is a set of negative impacts that sort of just showed up.

As for the collection agency, you should follow the guidelines of the federal fair credit collection act.

If you have old accounts showing on your report, it is very simple to dispute them with all 3 bureaus, and it takes about 5 minutes per bureau to dispute them online.

Just go to each bureaus website and find the dispute button. It is pretty self explanatory from there. Each account you dispute has 30 days to respond, if there is no response, then the bureau removes that account from your credit report. I did this over the last month, and my score jumped 40 points due to creditors not responding, or accounts being too old.

I have used Credit Karma for nearly 5 years now. I cant even recall my thoughts when I first signed on because there were no reviews such as this one. I suppose I took a risk signing on, although everything on their sight was secured and looked legitimate. When I first signed on I was 22, had a reposed car, 1 credit car, a couple student loans and a very poor score, somewhere around a 515. At first I didnt use the site like I do now, but I could check in every two months or so and it would show a slow increase. I paid off the balance on the repo’d vehicle which brought up a discriminatory mark that had nothing to do with Credit Karma, just my credit score. Since then I have been able to keep a close eye on my credit and for the first time ever, I have a 701 credit score which I give Credit Karma my thanks because they were able to show me what I needed to do to improve my score, and I did it!
I am just married, bought a car with the lowest interest offered,my score is only improving, and I show ALL of my friends and family Credit Karma because of what it did for me.
I suppose if you have no intention of attempting to fix your credit, or pay off your debts, then maybe this site wont benefit you the same. It took me several years to overcome the ‘rock over my head’ because of the repossession but now I have flawless payment history, I have 21 accounts opened throughout my years, only a couple of hard inquiries on my history at this time, and a solid understanding of my credit and what it is.
Thanks for everything Credit Karma and good luck to everyone else with your ventures and I hope this helps.

you better check your FICO score as well. Glad all good. The truth is credit scoring was created by the banks. In my day having a high 600 or 700 not over that was excellent. Now its up to 800 and 900 for business model. Very sad. Credit Karma as well its just a credit check page to get people to sign up and see their score which will flux up and down with just checking in. That is not good. The commercials showing young students having a credit score of 733 plus that are just lies. Unless you are married and have high debt ratio for model 9 which again was created by the banks to have control over your spending. Old model the more in debt the better the credit score. Then u get to 50 and over and have medical bills..and well the banks can’t bank on you anymore. Downhill they taketh and giveth… lol

Richard please see my comments below. I wouldn’t call the site a scam. Unfortunately The Fako Scores are not the real FICO score but since they are for the most part what we will get when we buy from the credit agencies as you may well know. After all that’s how we on the Fico Forum know all too well don’t we.

true that. Its just a help page to get some info on your credit score… gosh almighty its free, they made millions when they were charging. And now giving it away making more millions on personal information for the credit agencies.

true that. Its just a help page to get some info on your credit score… gosh almighty its free, they made millions when they were charging. And now giving it away making more millions on personal information for the credit agencies.

Only a couple of caveats.
The score they supply is not the actual FICO credit score but a score that Trans Union gets using their own scoring system.
There are three credit bureaus, Trans Union, Experian, and Equifax. Each uses a proprietary scoring system as well as the FICO system. If the score number is proceeded by the FICO name it is the true score that banks use when checking your credit.
The banks, and other places that you apply for credit at, may use all or only only one of the credit agencies as they see fit.
All of the other credit info supplied is as found in your actual credit report in summarization form.
This score may be used to give you an approximate idea where you stand score wise.
In defense I will also say that if you were to pay for the score directly to the companies it’s a good bet that they would give you a “Fako FICO” score as well. For now the only place that I trust for the “real” score (must pay for ti tho” is at “MyFico.com”. Honestly I have have no other problems with the site (Credit Karma) and do appreciate the chance to get credit information for free with no strings attached.

@ robin:
As far as I know personal (meaning you) looks do not show or lower your score, only a valid check by someone you are looking to apply for some credit from, IE new bank card, car, house, personal loan etc. But it does seem that when you do check, it actually helps by pushing the time stream back. You should go to MyFico.com and ask more in their forums (just a user like you) This site (credit Karma)is also informative

I have an account with Equifax and they treat the credit score as something they will give me (as a valuable client) if I pay them a fee. Why shouldn’t we all be able to get our credit score for free. I appreciate the service of CreditKarma.com. These credit reporting companies (Experian, Equifax, TransUnion) have a hell of a lot of power in our lives….just who are these people anyway?

Denise:
You do not need to pay a fee.
You use the information given in the report.
The report will show you where you are having problems. You should follow the advice given to change what the report shows. IE high credit card (CC) balances should be reduced to as low a number as is possible, in as short a time as possible.
Reduce the number of cards you use. Also DO NOT close the accounts of the cards you choose to no longer use, since part of their algorithms takes into account the length of time you’ve had the cards, the longer the better even though you don’t use them.
DO NOT open any new cards or store accounts no matter what incentive they offer, just tell them no thanks.
Use only one primary card for all credit purchases
Also get and use a card that offers money back,(I use Discover)
doesn’t help your score but you’re getting something for nothing if you pay your balance off each month.
All this may see hard at first, but your will power to resist impulse buying has to be strong.
Another thing is to actually ask the CC provider for a higher limit, this is because the algorithm they use also uses the limit /actual money used ratio to judge/rate your spending habits. They like to see about a 3 Percent limit to balance ratio.
Only very judicious spending habits over time will bring up that all important score.
Please logon to MyFico.com and get a lot of more info from the other members on how so many of them increased their scores. It is free just like this site. They offer discounts on getting scores from the other CCRs. I wouldn’t get any of the credit score tracking stuff, you don’t need anything more than what you can get here.
For your information my actual Fico scores from all three CCRs (Credit Card Reports) are 800+ so I know it works.
Use this site get an idea as to how well you are doing since free is good.
Also see my replies elsewhere here.
Good luck to you. Wanting to do this is a good start.

Good question, I searched the profile I have and it allows one to change everything except your name and address.
Perhaps you can delete the account and then rejoin with a different E-Mail address.
Your E-Mail account should allow you to add new / different addresses using a different prefix but using the same suffix (@*****.com, net, org, or what ever suffix) you now have.

I have had ck for only 3mo and find it to be very valuable , it already alearted me twice of report changes. 1 hard inquiry another use improvement. BUT simulator is crap it does not work there have been thousands of complaints about it. Its responses are not valid. This is offset by the good things it does. Too many, way too many to enumerate.

I wonder how accurate it is… I have a credit card I owe on and outstanding hospital debt from 4 years ago that doesn’t show up at all. All my other stuff shows up. Also I noticed people were questioning if you have to give your ss#. I just signed up with them today and you do. Your full number not just the last four digits. Which I would assumed.

I’ve used Credit Karma for several years and have also turned on my kids, now adults, to the site. I have nothing but good things to say about the value you receive for the effort it takes to get started. You see the direct implication of your actions to your credit score whether it’s accepting a new credit line at a local mall department store or an offer for 0% interest for the first year on a new credit card.
Everything you do and are impacts you credit score. For example, I noticed my auto insurance score dropped about 10 points one month even though I had no tickets, accidents or claims of any kind. However, it dawned on me it happened to be the month of my birthday. Although I can’t confirm age discrimination by the insurance companies through Credit Karma, my insurance agent did confirm that regardless of your record, your age is considered. Try fighting that battle alone. :-\ Time to call AARP 🙂

I signed up with creditkarma 3 or 4 months ago now… Of course at first I didn’t believe for a second the “it’s all free part “… Nothing is free nowadays lol! Well from my experience I was never asked for a credit card number n I never paid a penny. Now I believe the way they make their money is by advertising different credit cards with lower rates .. I have not signed up for any of those offers yet…but some of them look appealing !
At the end of the day I am able to check all kind of info on my debts n that’s what matters to me at this point!

I believe that a freeze (a good thing to do) only prevents anyone from opening up any new account with your info.

A freeze is easy to for anyone wishing to get strong protection from ID Thieves.
One problem is that it even keeps you from getting a new credit account (not to be confused with using your existing cards) unless you give a private code to them and unlock the files at each agency first.

I am still considering Credit Karma. I don’t mind fees so much as getting locked into months of payments and then having to try to remember to cancel cause you can’t afford it. And if Fico is the only score sets that matter, why do any of these other agencies exist?

Sharon:
Not sure about the fees you mention, but I don’t think they apple here. It was a free site that gets its money through the ads and Credit Cards offerings here.
PLEASE LOOK FOR MY PREVIOUS RESPONSES ABOVE. MY RESPONSES WILL BE UNDER ONLY THE NAME OF “RAY”.
The Fico scores are the actual scoring system the banks and other credit agencies access when you apply for any credit.
On the My Fico site (managed by the Fico organization which created the system) they offer a number of ways to get the credit reports and scores from the three major credit reporting agencies, for a fee of course.
The score / report are a one time pay only, not the auto charge renewal like you mention.
This site,as far as I know gives you a free score and perhaps a short report.

But how do the people confuse the two sites since they are leaving their comments here?
This has happened a couple of times.
I have tried to answer all of their questions, but can’t give any on those particular questions, especially this last one which really confounds me.

Honestly, I know for a fact that there are a few trolls on this post by IP logs. Whether they are competitor company trolls or just confused wanderers, I don’t know. Probably a combination of the two. The ones I know for sure are trolls, I am marking as such.

Agreed, that had crossed my mind.
Nuff said, don’t feed the Trolls, will take my own advise.
But will continue to apprise others that the stated(when they occur)does not apply to this site and should be ignored.

I have Credit Karma as well as other services. I know each service has it’s own models to which it provides score off of, and it seems there scores lower significantly lower then the rest. I noticed that the main thing they’re trying to solicit me is a service to “fix” my credit, so it’s my opinion this is why there score is lower. Would not consider there service a scam, but I recommend exploring other options as well. I have a credit card that now gives me updates and is seemingly accurate without trying to sell me any services which makes me feel much better.

I just signed up for a new CK account a few weeks ago and want to report that this Credit karma review was spot on. I’m really excited that I was able to get all of the benefits for free, especially the credit monitoring. Credit Karma is clearly safe to use and not a scam.

I started to sign up for CK, but when it came to entering my SS #,
it wanted all 9 numbers, not just the last 4 (as others stated in this forum). I immediately backed out of the sign up process to further look into reviews and see what I was getting myself into. I don’t feel comfortable supplying my entire SS#. Why are some people saying they only had to enter last 4 numbers, but I was asked to enter the whole thing?

I confirmed with CK that in some cases they need all 9 if they cannot confirm a correct match with just the last 4. Other credit reporting services require all 9, so I wouldn’t be concerned. Every credit service uses SS#’s – it’s how the credit companies identify individuals and report on them, because many individuals share the same name. It’s your only unique identifier.

I was wondering why my transUnion score went down 29 points in a month? But my Equifax score went up 11 points. Very weird to me. I pay all my Bills on time every month and I still have a credit score over 750 on both transUnion and Equifax. I did notice they added a closed account on my report but I paid it off in full and was never late making a payment.Someone told me that credit karma was doing a new type of sco

I had this same issue. My score dropped over 30 points but my payment percentage increased and I paid off a few collection accounts. I don’t understand at all. I am assuming they did something different in how they calculate the scores maybe? This is very frustrating when trying to improve my credit!!

TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian all have different calculations for their score. Additionally, the timing that information is reported to them can vary (and might not be reported at all), so the impact on your score will vary. While it is odd to see one go up and one go down, those are the reasons why. You can check your credit reports on the latter to see if they have varying information.

Thanks GE Miller. I called transUnion and Equifax and they said I had derogatory mark That was reported later rather than earlier. I also noticed the score that went up dropped the next week which put both of my transUnion and Equifax around 743 and 753 respectively. He assured me as long as I keep all my accounts in good standing they should continue to creep up monthly. However the derogatory mark from five years ago will go off in September ’16 and my score should return or be higher than it was before they dropped. Even though I paid this particular account off it was in collections therefore it will still be put as derogatory on my credit report until it’s removal in September. Thanks for your advice again.

Hey fae since those accounts were in collections when you paid them off it will still be put on your credit report as derogatory. Once those accounts get removed from your credit report your score should rise respectively. However your score should still continue to rise a little monthly as long as you keep your accounts in good standing. I call transUnion and Equifax and this nice lady explained it to me.

Hey melissa since those accounts were in collections when you paid them off it will still be put on your credit report as derogatory. Once those accounts get removed from your credit report your score should rise respectively. However your score should still continue to rise a little monthly as long as you keep your accounts in good standing. I call transUnion and Equifax and this nice lady explained it to me.

I’ve been using CK for a couple of years as I’ve been really working on improving my scores. I logged in this week and with no real changes other than $34 higher credit utilization my score dropped 84 points while last week it jumped by 51 points. I’m wondering what is going on as nothing major has taken place. Help!?

I’ve been using CK for about three years now. I was able to bring my poor credit from high 500 to a 730. CK was able to collect all my debt and in one place which helped with managing it. Took CK advise and tips about utilizing low percentage on CC to bring score up and it worked perfectly. Best of all I didn’t spent a penny on this CK. Would recommended it highly.

My wife’s wallet was stolen. I set up a ck account to see what the report may show if someone tried to buy anything on account. I found that it appears whoever stole the wallet set up an account. How can I contact Credit Karma to get this straightened out.
Thanks,
Lionel

I have been using Credit Karma for several years, and am generally pleased with the ease of obtaining this information, with one caveat.

CK consistently gives me poor scores for having too credit card accounts, for too long, which seems like a conflict of interest with credit card and other financial offers on their site. These are listed as minor factors, and I have no intention of opening additional accounts to “improve” them.

I have been using Credit Karma for a year now, it’s great to help those who need to clean up their report and it’s very informative to those who have no idea how credit works. Yes they are free of charge and only get their information from two credit agencies. (Transunion and Equifax) Not all information or scores are correct. My score on Credit Karma said 580 but after speaking with my broker he ran a hard inquiry and found it to be 672. Just remember there are 28 FICO scoring brackets. And “You get what you pay for”

Credit Karma is sponsored by the companies they offer, this is how they are able to give this to you for free. No matter what company you use to check your credit it does not hurt your credit. Only hard inquiries from lenders such as if you were trying to get mortgage, auto, credit card etc.

It’s not Credit Karma. I just submitted an application for a home equity line of credit, and was told that there was a record for a $124,000 mortgage that was paid off 6 years ago. Fortunately, I had the PAID IN FULL paperwork in my safe deposit box.

If you are a Notary Public, I would NOT recommend filing your 2016 taxes with Credit Karma. Fees receive for notarization (generally $10 per act or signature) are exempt from self employment taxes. We have been using H&R Block for over 10 years, and while the entry point for this information has been a little elusive from time to time, it has always been there.

This year, I tried entering the data into both H&R Block, and Credit Karma just to see if it would be worth saving the filing fees, However, I found Credit Karma’s guidance vague at best, and the refund amounts appeared a couple of hundred dollars lower than Block’s results, potentially costing us more to file for “free” with CK compared to paying Block’s fees and receiving a larger tax return.

I could not find the entry point for notary public fees at all! CK offers support only by email. Three days after submitting my inquiry regarding this issue, I finally received a couple of responses that only indicated that they were looking into the issue. I was not willing to wait any longer for them to figure it out, so I completed the process with Block, submitted it, and had an acknowledgement of receipt of both federal and state within minutes.

Credit Karma Tax may be fine for a relatively simple tax return, and may eventually become a viable option for us, but not for this year.

AVOID CREDIT KARMA TAX. I tried it this year, had a technical glitch with Fed e-file and needed technical support. First support message sent on Feb 3rd, and FOURTEEN emails back-and-forth later, I still got a canned response that totally ignored my question. Meanwhile, I tried 1040.com, had the same technical glitch, sent ONE message for help, and got an actual response to my question in less than 24 hours.

Here’s a question re possible identity theft. My state tax return seems to have been lost in the mail. The return was handed to a USPS carrier 4/12/18, the check has not been processed, I called the tax peeps and they confirmed it has not been received . I am worried that perhaps someone has my return and may use my SS# to do wrong! Will CK reports provide me the necessary info to monitor for illegal activity? I’m thinking the answer is ‘yes, but…’. The ‘but’ being I’ll have to ask Equifax, and Experian for separate reports as well? Thanks for your input!

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